De Barral was out and, for a time speechless, being led away almost
before he had taken possession of the free world, by his daughter. Flora
controlled herself well. They walked along quickly for some distance.
The cab had been left round the corner--round several corners for all I
know. He was flustered, out of breath, when she helped him in and
followed herself. Inside that rolling box, turning towards that
recovered presence with her heart too full for words she felt the desire
of tears she had managed to keep down abandon her suddenly, her
half-mournful, half-triumphant exultation subside, every fibre of her
body, relaxed in tenderness, go stiff in the close look she took at his
face. He was different. There was something. Yes, there was
something between them, something hard and impalpable, the ghost of these
high walls.
How old he was, how unlike!
She shook off this impression, amazed and frightened by it of course. And
remorseful too. Naturally. She threw her arms round his neck. He
returned that hug awkwardly, as if not in perfect control of his arms,
with a fumbling and uncertain pressure. She hid her face on his breast.
It was as though she were pressing it against a stone. They released
each other and presently the cab was rolling along at a jog-trot to the
docks with those two people as far apart as they could get from each
other, in opposite corners.
After a silence given up to mutual examination he uttered his first
coherent sentence outside the walls of the prison.
"What has done for me was envy. Envy. There was a lot of them just
bursting with it every time they looked my way. I was doing too well. So
they went to the Public Prosecutor--"
She said hastily "Yes! Yes! I know," and he glared as if resentful that
the child had turned into a young woman without waiting for him to come
out. "What do you know about it?" he asked. "You were too young." His
speech was soft. The old voice, the old voice! It gave her a thrill.
She recognized its pointless gentleness always the same no matter what he
had to say. And she remembered that he never had much to say when he
came down to see her. It was she who chattered, chattered, on their
walks, while stiff and with a rigidly-carried head, he dropped a gentle
word now and then.
Moved by these recollections waking up within her, she explained to him
that within the last year she had read and studied the report of the
trial.